CFDA President Diane von Furstenberg on love, her image and design piracy

By Tina Gaudoin

Diane von Furstenberg turned the wrap dress into an empire. Now she’s trying to protect the industry from piracy. She wears a suit of her own design and jewelry from her personal collection.

I wanted to be a woman with a man’s life in a woman’s body. It’s not like I grew up to be a fashion designer. What I wanted to be was a certain type of a woman. I wanted to have the advantage of a man and the advantage of a woman. Things don’t happen in spite of you. Or if they do, they don’t last. So I think you have to want to be a success. It’s a lot of work and it’s a lot of perseverance.

I went into fashion almost by accident, to determine my own destiny, to pay my bills. It just so happened that my first job was in a silk printing factory in Como. I didn’t think I was even learning anything. But when you’re learning, you don’t always understand that you are learning. I went to this man who owned this factory and I said, “I’m going to get married and move to New York. Would you allow me to make a few samples and maybe I can sell them in America?” I didn’t think I would have my own label, but that’s how I started.

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With first husband Egon von Furstenberg in the 1970s.

I was this banal little Jewish girl who married this hotshot, good-looking prince. There were a lot of other girls prettier than me. Egon von Furstenberg and I got engaged in Rome, he was working in New York. I didn’t take it seriously. I didn’t really think I was going to get married, not that quickly. All of a sudden I was pregnant. When I came here, I was determined to prove myself.

It’s all about attitude. It always will be. Even though I was pregnant, even though I came into a new town, even though I knew nothing, I started to work. I was determined. I went to see Diana Vreeland. It all happened really quickly. I had the right product at the right time, which is why I feel so strongly about protecting design and designers and why I am making it my mission to get the Design Piracy Prohibition Act passed.

Comments (5 of 9)

I simply can not obtain a place here to order a subscribtion to "Letters in the Mail" for a reward or two and also for myself.It sounds like a wonderful idea and several of my mates might be delighted to receive letters in the mail....Diane

Copyright law is one of the oldest Intellectual Property Rights. It was desegnid and used to protect the author and to let him/her reap the benefits of the intellectual labour. Over the last decennia it has become a tool in the hands of the middleman' to protect their interests. But these same middleman' have used contract law and ignorance by the owners of the copyright to strengthen their own position and its is mostly these middleman that have been able to lure their own governments into strict legislation that has been proven not to work.So why not use the strong copyright law (in the hands of the authors) and the internet to let authors manage their own rights. As far as I have been able to determine the reach of the report it did not approach the issue from out this angle. I like the cd license under which the report has been published.Jan from the Netherlands

7:49 pm August 31, 2012

Amina wrote:

, btw) of piracy as this is rlleay a matter of human nature.Some people will always be prepared to pirate, regardless of high-quality, fairly-priced, digitally distributed goods being readily and legally available. I remember how one time (probably dating back to around 2002), a Russian satellite TV provider, NTV Plus, established a website for the purpose of raising awareness to service/signal theft by way of using counterfeit viewing smartcards in order to enable the unauthorized decryption and viewing of protected television programming (a practice which, if I remember correctly, was later made irrelevant with the introduction of an updated version of the key management system); this website happened contain a discussion board. Forgive me should I be mistaken, but I clearly remember a certain participant openly declaring that he would continue to engage in theft of service, regardless of pricing – “even had the most expensive service plan been priced at a mere Russian Rouble [sic]” in his own words – citing the ideology that “information should be freely available to all” and that the mere copying of information cannot constitute any wrongdoing. It was exactly the moment when I finished reading his nonsense that it dawned on me that apparently, for some, piracy is an ideology, or, dare I say, a manner of living. There are even more severe cases where it apparently becomes an obsession (q.v. “The Warez Scene”) or even breadwinning, at worst. It is evident that piracy, to some people, constitutes more than merely a circumstantial consequence. I, however, still do fully agree that it still feels “habitual” for some to pirate copyrighted works due to incommensurable pricing of these products. Further, pricing often provides a convenient excuse for the justification of these deeds. I, too, for instance, fail to understand why on earth would a digital version of a PC game title, obtainable via Steam, cost the same or more(!) than its shrink-wrapped, retail counterpart – even when taking into account the commission fees paid by the developer to Valve for digital distribution; Could it be that Valve’s commission fees are as relatively high as to equate with the sum spent on physical media, packaging and distribution? – This is just one private instance of, like you’ve mentioned, an industry-wide misconception and the logic behind this way of doing business is just beyond my perception.Having said all this and adding to an already long comment, it is still all about that two-edged sword that many seem to keep discussing; consumers should pay more respect to intellectual property rights while content providers are best to provide diverse distribution options, at a fair, balanced pricing and without the inclusion of overly invasive and inconvenient DRM – which is a subject good enough for a topic on its own.I rlleay hope that the wind in the industry will, in the future, blow in the direction of meeting consumer pricing expectations. We need a change.With best regards,